The Thrill
by writinginthesky
Summary: What would you do to escape the horror of memory? Funny thing, isn't it? Memory, that is. You can run from murderers and fires or small towns. But how can you run when the worst thing you can imagine is stuck to the inside of your eyelids?
1. Cynics

Hey guys. I swear I haven't given up on In Perfect Time! I've been rather… flighty lately. Anyway, this will probably be a short fic… at least for now. I'm thinking around four short chapters – though not as short as this. Enjoy it and review, por favor!

(As usual, I own nothing)

Prologue:

We are always running for the thrill of it, thrill of it  
>Always pushing up the hill searching for the thrill of it<br>On and on and on we are calling out and out again  
>Never looking down, I'm just in awe of what's in front of me<p>

Catch me I'm falling down  
>Catch me I'm falling down<p>

Don't stop, just keep going on  
>I'm your shoulder lean upon<br>So come on, deliver from inside  
>All we got is tonight<p>

-Wiz Khalifa "The Thrill"

Present Day

It's been years. So many, many years that this game we play, this endless intrigue, seems as though it never actually started. It is a game of claws and teeth, sweat and sugar and the taste of lingering blood. Like vampires, we suck the life out of this bar, this sad shallow city: hometown of the lonely search for a quick high – any escape at all will do, just please please please let me not be myself for an hour or so. Of this scum – these bottom feeders who want forever to rise above, though they are chained to the floorboards of smoky, dark dives – we are the worst.

Most of these people don't know what they are. They see this loneliness as temporary. They believe in love, in the small chances of meeting, clashing, grasping eyes across the room. They are not acting, somehow solid and real in this world of faked bodies and minds. They are real because what they pursue is real.

Edward and I, we see this bar for what it is. This is not a fairy tale. When I look around, the men clamoring to buy me drinks are not prince charmings. Even Edward, especially Edward, is not prince charming. I am far from an innocent princess or damsel in distress, as lost and alone as I am.

Twenty years ago, I would have insisted that true love existed, that the universe was perfectly operated by a benevolent God. Twenty years ago, it was obvious to me that I was meant to be with my very best friend in the world, that he would turn to me in slow motion with his Technicolor eyes seeing me as if for the first time one day soon. I dreamed of weddings, of pure white symbolism.

But twenty years ago… twenty years ago, I was naïve. Twenty years ago, I was stupid. Twenty years ago, I was ugly.


	2. Innocents

This second chapter, keep in mind, is extremely different from the first. I hope you like it!

Wasn't it **easier** in your lunchbox days?  
>Always a bigger bed to crawl into<br>**Wasn't it beautiful when you believed in everything?****  
><strong>And everybody believed in you?

It's all right, just wait and see  
>Your string of lights is still bright to me<br>Oh, who you are is not where you've been  
>You're still an innocent<br>You're still an innocent

**There's some things you can't speak of****  
><strong>**But tonight you'll live it all again****  
><strong>You wouldn't be shattered on the floor now  
>If only you would sing what you know now then<p>

Wasn't it easier in your firefly-catching days?  
>And everything out of reach, someone bigger brought down to you<br>**Wasn't it beautiful running wild 'til you fell asleep?****  
><strong>**Before the monsters caught up to you?**

1991

"Yo, Clyde!" I called out my open window.

"Bonnie! I'm getting dressed!" whined my thoroughly perturbed best friend and neighbor.

"Whatever, PB," I growled and pulled my baseball cap lower over my murky brown eyes. I grabbed my homework off of my sturdy old desk, knocking a well-worn copy of one of my mom's bodice rippers off of my precarious stack of miscellaneous papers and books. "Shiiiiit," I drawled in an impression of John Wayne. I tucked the incriminating novel under my mattress and shoved my math book into my ugly-yet-functional backpack and tore down the stairs.

My mother Renee, a silly teenage girl of a 31-year-old woman, sat at the kitchen table, clipping coupons for dog food and watching a vapid talk show. "Ma. We don't even have a dog," I groaned as I grabbed a slightly-bruised apple from the fruit basket in the middle of the table. I shined it on my vintage Mariners t-shirt and threw a granola bar into one of the vast pockets in my cargo pants.

"Honey," Renee pleaded "Could you wear some lipstick or a skirt or something? Please?"

I rolled my eyes and smacked my gum, knowing that both habits were decisively unladylike and would piss her off to no end. I was not disappointed.

"Charlie! Tell your daughter that she's a girl. PLEASE."

My father stomped into the kitchen smelling of cigarettes and coffee, the way he always did in the morning. He told my mother and me that he had quit smoking, but we both knew he snuck them on the back porch all the time. Charlie was a man's man: tall and broad-shouldered with a thick mustache. He was the chief of police in our little town of Forks, Washington, used to giving out speeding tickets and eating several donuts a day. He was also as strangely child-like as my mother was. His sweet tooth and general sneakiness and her infamously-short attention span made them what they were… and made me the true parent of the cheery yellow house on Main Street.

We weren't perfect. We didn't really take each other seriously unless we were screaming and the pressure of being more mature than my (admittedly young) parents at 14 sometimes got to me. But we loved each other, so we made it work.

I ran out the door without a second glance. Honestly, it felt like I couldn't breathe when my best friend wasn't in sight.

"Aidennnnnn!" I ran the 13 steps separating our doors and into his house. His mother, the gorgeously put-together Esme, simply smiled her Colgate-commercial smile at me. She was used to my boyish behavior and endless intrusion into her lives. Aiden and I had, after all, lived next to each other from birth. The longest we had ever been apart was a weekend in which Aiden's family had gone to Southern California for surf lessons. It was supposed to be a week-long vacation. But neither of us did well. Actually we were both inconsolable. Our parents learned their lesson then, thank goodness. Now all vacations were joint Johnson and Stevens efforts.

Aiden came running down the stairs in a white t-shirt, jeans, and a leather jacket with his wild dark brown hair standing on end. I laughed and rolled my eyes. "Really, Robin? The James Dean look again?" Aiden frowned, but his green eyes sparkled. "Number 1, Miss Jennifer Marie Johnson, I am far from the Robin to your Batman. You're definitely Robin. Number 2, does the look get me some ladies or not?" he flashed me a grin.

It was true. Aiden was your typical high school heartthrob. He was athletic and intelligent as well as attractive, a lethal combination that seemingly forced slutty girls to hurl themselves at him. Ironically, it just made me want to hurl. Partly because they were disgusting. But mostly because I was in love with Aiden Stevens, and he didn't seem to know I was a girl.

I was a bit of a late bloomer, but lately had been stubbornly covering my new curves in baggy clothing, hoping that the embarrassing lumps wouldn't show on the football field, where being the only female player was a liability if the other team noticed. Most of the time, they didn't. Aiden had always stood by me in front of the other guys, convincing them to treat me just like any other member of the team, so they backed me up when it was a problem. Mostly, they averted their eyes in the locker room and I averted mine. No biggie. They laughed at my only girlish reflex – my telltale blush – sometimes, but were protective and sweet towards me. I had an entire locker room full of big brothers but no prospects for school dances or dates on the weekend, which clashed with my rapidly developing sensuality, fed by Renee's inappropriate literature and sleeping in a bedroom feet from Aiden's. It wouldn't have bothered me if Aiden was staying home too (preferably making use of our adjacent accommodations), but he was out with a different girl every week.

I sighed and blew the short hair across my forehead into the air. Across the parking lot, Aiden's neck snapped and he looked at me quizzically with his eerily bright green eyes. "You ok?" he mouthed.

"Fine," I mouthed back and rolled my eyes. Aiden had a protective streak a mile wide and always knew immediately when something was wrong. Most of the time, it was his fault, but he'd never know that. I'd make sure of it.

On our way to Calculus, he grabbed my sharp, skinny elbow. "Hey, are you sure nothing's wrong?"

I rolled my eyes "Nothing new," I murmured under my breath. But Aiden's hearing was extremely keen, I remembered too late. When I chanced a quick peek up at him through my eyelashes, one of his eyebrows was cocked. He waited for an explanation. My mind rushed, trying to find something to say, when, as if on cue, his girlfriend of the hour strolled up.

Aiden gave me a look that said clearly "We'll talk about this later" as her French-manicured claws gripped his bicep. I nearly snarled at her ("that's MY PERSONAL bicep, whore. Don't you see the sign?").

She looked at me and raised an eyebrow, clearly and coolly asking me with her perfectly symmetrical face if I was planning on pissing on him as well. I lowered my head and plodded off, tail between my legs.

When we got to Calc, he grabbed my wrist. "Act sick," he whispered in my ear, his lips almost brushing my earlobe. I shivered and flushed involuntarily and decided to go with that, looking as feverish as possible. Aiden walked to Mrs. Knepley and gestured to me. She nodded her head and he rushed back, picking up my books and backpack and holding my elbow. His brow furrowed in fake concern, his eyes sparkling, and time seemed to slow down. I remember thinking he had never looked as beautiful as he did in that moment. My heart lurched in a sickening double beat and I felt, suddenly, as though I were actually sick. At first, I thought it was just a severe reaction to him, but the feeling developed quickly into knowledge of something horrible. My eyes widened in panic.

Aiden looked at me, terrified, as I ran out of the school towards my truck. "Something's wrong." I gasped through my constricting lungs. "Take me home."

Aiden pulled me from my ancient, slow vehicle towards his shiny new Volvo. We sped out of Forks High parking lot and tore through town to our neighborhood.

This was twenty years ago. This would be the last time I would do so many things. The last time I would see Mrs. Knepley or any of the other teachers or friends I had known my entire life. The last time I would see the school fade into the distance from the window of a shiny silver Volvo. The last time I would be naïve. The last time I would be stupid. The last time I would be ugly. I'd give anything to go back.


	3. We All Burn One Way or Another

A/N: Transition chapter between innocence and the monsters that result.

**I lost my innocence today****  
><strong>I could feel her in my bones  
>My bones, my bones, my bones<br>My blood, my blood, my blood, my blood

And I woke up, tired, scared and sad  
>Soaked, drained, I felt so bad<br>Today, today, today  
>What you still, you still, you still, you still<br>Won't you say, you say, you say, you say  
>What you feel, you feel, you feel, you feel<br>Which is nothing but hollow feelings, yeah  
>I can, done, I just don't care<p>

**And forget happiness, I'm fine****  
><strong>**I'll forget everything in time****  
><strong>I swear I didn't know,  
>You know me, how I can't let go<br>And we're not guts, we're just hacks  
>All that life the cracks<br>The scars, the scene that breaks  
><strong>The ugly teens, the worst mistakes<strong>  
>And everywhere I see her face<br>Such a beautiful child, such an awful waste  
>And there's no innocence like hers<br>Just emptiness and nerves

And this light from the window of my car  
>She'll never see it, oh my God<br>I was so surprised, it blew up in my face  
>Lord, I lost my nerve, oh my God<br>Oh my God, oh my... God

And I tear, I tear, so hard  
>And I tear, I tear, so hard<br>And I beg and scream, "I was wrong"  
>It's over, she's gone<br>-The Airborne Toxic Event, Innocence 

We pulled over once. Just so I could puke into the drooping wildflowers and weeds on the side of the road. The closer we got, the better we could smell the smoke. By the time we pulled into Aiden's driveway, in front of our two lovely Victorian homes, we could smell the bodies of our parents. They smelled like food. Like meat barbeque. Like so much gristle and muscle.

I sat, numbly in the car. Aiden jumped out, and rushed into the flames. It would have been a better story if I had yelled for him to come back, to not leave me, not ever again. It would have made me look better if I had gotten out of the car and run into the house. It would have at least seemed intelligent, if a bit cold, if I had told him it was too late, that there was no use in us killing ourselves. I wish I could say I knew they were gone.

But I didn't know.

All I knew in that moment was that the second I moved, I would have to carry on my life. I would have to act like a normal human being. I would have to leave every scrap of innocence clinging to the leather seats of Aiden's sedan. There would be no clutching the shreds to me, to cover me. I would be totally and completely naked.

So I stayed in the car.

A man ran out of the building, his blonde hair in a ratty ponytail. Aiden charged out of the flames after him as cop cars and fire trucks screeched into our driveway. I would have liked to say that I was trying to get a description of my parent's murderer, that that is the reason I stared after the man who ruined my life so single-mindedly. But honestly, I could not look at Aiden. I wanted to avoid the telling expressions in his face. So I stared at the man as he tore out of my driveway in a flurry of sleek black car and chrome rims. And when he looked back at me, when he menacingly drew a thin finger across his neck, I smiled at him. I would stay alive just to torture him, just to be the one who got away. Even if it killed me inside.


	4. Together Alone

**A/N: This one's short, but there's another right behind it! As always, SM owns everything and I can't even pay for college…**

**Losing My Religion**

Oh life, it's bigger  
>It's bigger than you<br>And you are not me  
><strong>The lengths that I will go to<strong>**  
><strong>**The distance in your eyes****  
><strong>**Oh no, I've said too much**  
>I set it up<p>

**That's me in the corner****  
><strong>**That's me in the spotlight****  
><strong>**Losing my religion****  
><strong>**Trying to keep a view****  
><strong>**And I don't know if I can do it****  
><strong>**Oh no, I've said too much****  
><strong>**I haven't said enough****  
><strong>  
>I thought that <strong>I heard you laughing<strong>  
>I thought that I <strong>heard you sing<strong>  
>I think I thought I saw you try<p>

Every whisper  
>Of every waking hour<br>**I'm choosing my confessions****  
><strong>**Trying to keep an eye on you****  
><strong>**Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool**  
>Oh no, I've said too much<br>I set it up

Consider this  
>Consider this, the hint of the century<br>**Consider this, the slip****  
><strong>**That brought me to my knees**, failed  
>What if all these fantasies come<br>Flailing aground  
>Now I've said too much<p>

I thought that I heard you laughing  
>I thought that I heard you sing<br>I think I thought I saw you try

But that was **just a dream**  
>That was just a dream<p>

That's me in the corner  
>That's me in the spotlight<br>Losing my religion  
>Trying to keep a view<br>And I don't know if I can do it  
>Oh no, I've said too much<br>I haven't said enough

I thought that I heard you laughing  
>I thought that I heard you sing<br>I think I thought I saw you try

But that was just a dream  
><strong>Try, cry, why try<strong>  
>That was <strong>just a dream<strong>  
>Just a dream<br>Just a dream, dream

-R.E.M. Losing My Religion

The funeral was horrid. Aiden and I sat in the front pew of a church we had entered only on Christmases, when Renee would suddenly become ridiculously pious. She would stand in the middle of the church, bellowing "PUHRAISEEEE JAYSUS" despite the fact that we were Catholic. Now, the walls seemed cold and bare without the wreaths and white doves and the members of the congregation looked at us curiously, like circus freaks. They didn't know our parents and they didn't know us. We were just the entertainment for the week. I wanted to vomit.

I wasn't reacting correctly, I knew. I hadn't cried yet. Neither had Aiden. We both stood, blankly staring at the people leaving the church. They kissed us wetly, left oily lipstick stains on our cheeks. But it was as though they weren't really there, that I was hallucinating or something. I imagined writing an English assignment for Mr. Jones called "This One Weird Dream I Had." Our well wishers drove out of the damp parking lot, leaving us with promises of help. They got into their fucking mid-size sedans and sighed, said a word or two about "those poor orphans" and then smiled and went out to eat for lunch. WE had no such luck.

I will never be able to forget the day we left our homes, Aiden and I. I took only a trashy romance novel, which miraculously avoided the fire that had destroyed the remnants of its owner so effortlessly.

My cheery yellow house faded from the rearview mirror of the cop car. I know this with the certainty of a person who was used to such a thing happening. I did not watch it. I promised myself to never look back.

My father's best friend, fellow officer Billy Black, greeted us at the station. He had been promoted to my father's old job, but refused to take his office. Passing my father's door, with its sign "Charlie Johnson, Chief," was slightly comforting. I could pretend for a moment that he was still inside, stooping over his desk and breaking pencils with his overly-large hands. But that moment, as all good does, passed.


	5. Metamorphosis

**Here's the next chapter **

**Witness the Change **

In my mind there are **mirrors  
>Reflecting on the past<br>The shattered hopes and dreams of a future  
>That was never meant to last<br>**Just **turn around** now  
>Tell me what you <strong>see<strong>  
>Look all around you<br>Is this how things could be  
>Had enough of love neverlasting<br>But now I know it never will  
>Hanging around on the off chance<br>**Waiting for that certain thrill**  
>Just turn around now<br>**See what we have done**  
>It's getting late now<br>**The future has begun  
>Witness the change<strong>  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Some kinds of love are magical mystical  
>I wonder how I'd feel<br>If ever I should be so enchanted  
>To get a taste of <strong>what is real<strong>  
>Just look around now<br>Tell me what you see  
>Look all around you<br>Is this how things could be  
><strong>I feel the sound of thunder and laughter<br>It's tearing me apart**  
>I start to fade till all that's remaining is<br>The echo of my heart  
>Just look around you<br>See what we have done  
>It's getting late now<br>The future has begun  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>**I have a feeling and I know it will never die**  
>Part of the answer for asking the reason why<br>Out of the darkness the bright light surrounding me  
>I am a part of everything I touch and see<br>I feel the sound of thunder and laughter  
><strong>It's tearing me apart<br>I hope that you will remember  
>The echo of my heart<strong>  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
>Witness the change<br>Witness the change  
><strong>Witness the change<strong>

-Shelley Pete Witness the Change

The fact was simple. Our parents' killer was still roaming free, despite our descriptions of him. The cops always looked at me as if they were amazed that I could remember his face so well. The only person who understood that I was not as cold and meticulous a person as I seemed was Aiden, who woke me every night when I began screaming. It was hard to forget a face that was tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.

No one knew why he had killed our parents, but the fact that he had threatened to kill me and had seen both Aiden and I meant that we were in danger. The FBI was contacted, and we were connected to the witness protection program. We were given very little choice. We left the burnt shells of our once-cheery, whole homes to become memories, stills in our rearview mirrors that grew blurrier with each passing year. They took us to an apartment in New York City, handed us the keys. They were heavy in our hands.

Then, we were taken to a deceptively-simple looking salon. Inside, they handed us books and told us to choose who we would be.

It is disconcerting, choosing your own name, your hair and eye color, the way you would dress. Luckily, I had my manual. The trashy romance novel was already growing tattered from constant reading. My name would be Bella Swan. My hair would be long, and a dark reddish brown, curling down my back. My eyes would stay brown. And I would be a seductress.

It sounded childish, even then. But still, I raised my chin determinedly and told the staff what I wanted.

Aiden chose the name Edward Cullen. He kept his eyes green only after I quietly reminded him they were his mother's eyes. But his shock of dark brown hair was cut shorter and ruffled, dyed a strange reddish-blondish-brownish mess that only made him look younger.

We held hands, looking at each other intently as our transformations took place. Neither of us wanted to forget what we had looked like, once. When we were whole.

When we enrolled at Manhattan Preparatory Academy, we had an entire back story. We were young, rich cousins whose parents had died when we were young in a car crash. We had come to New York for a prep school education.

Aiden, the freshman heartthrob who had taken our high school by storm with his charm and cheeriness was gone. Jennifer, the tomboy closet romantic who had fought for a spot on the football team and been in love with her best friend was gone.

And just like that, everything I had ever known was erased by a fire and a maniac in a few weeks.


End file.
